People
Places
Dates
Themes and Motifs
Books
100

These are the names of Daniel's three friends during his time in the Babylonian courts. 

Who are Shadrach (Hebrew: Hananiah), Meshach (Hebrew: Mishael), and Abed-Nego (Hebrew: Azariah)? 

100

This is the religious and political capital of the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

What is Jerusalem? 

100

This rather unusual prophet is known for having a ministry directly to the people in exile. 

Who is Ezekiel? 

100

This motif and stock phrase in the Book of the Twelve is the prophets' way of describing the immanent future day of Yahweh's judgment on the earth, often using apocalyptic themes and images. 

What is "the day of the Lord"? 

100

This kind of poetic convention begins each line of a poem or psalm with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. 

What is an acrostic? 

200

These three prophets are known to have had a ministry to the people who returned from exile.

Who are Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi? 

200

These two cities functioned as the religious capitals of the Northern Kingdom. 

What are Dan and Bethel? 

200

In critical scholarship, these two portions of the book of Isaiah are theorized to have been written after the lifetime of the eighth-century prophet.

What are Second Isaiah (chs. 40–55) and Third Isaiah (chs. 56–66)? 

200

This short pithy saying is a social observation about how life usually works.

What is a proverb?

200

This wisdom book confronts the reality of human suffering, but ultimately offers no solution to the problem, only proclaiming that in view of God's greatness and care, human suffering may be beyond human explanation.

What is the book of Job? 

300

These four are usually known under the (potentially) ironic moniker "Job's friends."

Who are Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu? 

300

This city became the functioning civic capital of the Northern Kingdom.

What is Samaria? 

300

This is the date that the building of the Second Temple in Jerusalem was completed. 

What is 516 BCE?

300

In the Song of Songs, one often hears the exhortation-refrain given to the Daughters of Jerusalem. The refrain pleads with them to neither "awaken nor stir up" this emotion "until it pleases."

What is love? 

300
In terms of reading apocalyptic literature, it is fundamentally important to remember this rule.
What is the rule: "we should not look for a single historical referent for each apocalyptic image, but rather consider each image in its social, historical, and canonical context"? 
400

This biblical author writes in the persona of Solomon in order to test his theory that there is nothing that one can gain or achieve on earth that will have any lasting value, except for accepting good and simple gifts from God and living in light of his goodness and sovereignty. 

Who is Qoheleth, otherwise known as the Preacher or Teacher? 

400

This is the famous Babylonian site where Ezekiel had his vision of the four "living beings" (Ezek 1) among the people of the exile.   

What is the Kebar River? 

400

The prophet Isaiah acted as a prophet during the reigns of these four kings.

Who are Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah? 

400

This human posture, called "the beginning of wisdom" in Proverbs and "the end of the matter" in Ecclesiastes, is a wholistic affect-infused response to God's divine character in light of his greatness and power which, in turn, provides stark self-knowledge of one's own createdness. 

What is "the fear of the Lord/God"? 

400

This book is one part third-person court narrative, one part apocalyptic prophecy about future events which the author does not understand, and one part first-person narrative told from the perspective of the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar. 

What is the book of Daniel? 

500

These are the six prophets who are known to have had a ministry to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. 

Who are Jonah, Joel, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah? 

500
These are the names of the four global superpowers of the ancient Near East in chronological order of their times of dominance in the region surrounding Israel. 

What are Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, and Persia? 

500

This year marks the return of the exiles to Jerusalem under the command of Cyrus of Persia.

What is 539 BCE? 

500

This is the main message that is communicated by the "Servant" Songs in the book of Isaiah. 

What is the message: "God Himself will raise up a faithful and just representative to do what Israel failed to do: be true to the covenant and so be light and salvation to Israel and to the nations." 

500

This wisdom book is marked with the refrain "Vanity of vanities, everything is vanity," which, in the original Hebrew, utilizes an image of breath on a cold night to describe the nature of human life.  

What is the book of Ecclesiastes?